With Extra Bean Paste
by Artemis Day
Summary: AU. Really, they should've expected this from Orihime by now.


**A/N: This was written for the Valentine's Day Contest over on the deviantART Ulquihime fanclub. It's also my first ever Bleach fic! Yay!**

**Hope you enjoy!**

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"It's chocolate covered boiled broccoli with red bean paste!"

The room goes quiet, but Ulquiorra can't be bothered to think on it, he already knows why anyway.

Two desks away, Kurosaki is staring wide eyed at the bubbly girl. His hand, which holds a piece of store bought chocolate given to him by Kuchiki, is frozen in mid air. Kuchiki herself just raises an eyebrow, clearly she is used to the woman's bizarre culinary creations. The Quincy is staring down at his desk, not wanting to get involved.

That friend of Kurosaki's, Mizuo or whatever, looks up from his own massive chocolate bar, though more with amusement than disgust. It's that other idiot friend, the one whose name Ulquiorra never bothered to learn (of course, he'd never bothered to learn any of his classmates names since, besides the woman, they were all trash anyway), who is making the biggest scene. Apparently the contents of the woman's gift is cause enough for him to run to the garbage can and dry heave into it several times. The idiot trash.

In general, the rest of the class appear equally disturbed and sickened by the chocolate mass the bright and cheerful eyed woman has just placed on his desk.

Ulquiorra tilts his head as he examines the tiny mounds of chocolate vegetables. His gaze is not unlike that of a scientist studying an experiment. He looks back up that the woman.

"And this is for…this 'Valentine's Day' thing you spoke about?" he asks.

The orange head nodded vigorously, "It's customary for girls to give their boyfriends chocolate today, so I made this for you last night. I worked very hard, so I hope you like it, Ulquiorra-kun."

"Inoue…" Kurosaki speaks up. "Why did you put _chocolate_ on _broccoli_?"

Ulquiorra glares at the annoying shinigami, but the woman just smiles brighter (which was apparently possible, much to the former Espada's surprise).

"Well, you see," she explains, "I was originally going to make chocolate cookies. I have this delicious recipe for them, but I was all out of mustard and the store didn't have any so I went to another store but they didn't have it either and-"

"Orihime…" the woman's spiky haired friend interrupts gently, while next to her, the idiot trash has put his head back in the garbage, likely due to the 'mustard cookie' implications.

"Oh right," the woman says with a giggle. "Thanks, Tatsuki. Anyway, I was trying to figure out what to make you instead Ulquiorra-kun, when I saw a news report about this group of people organizing a 'healthy eating week' next month, and that's when I had a great idea: Why not take something that's already healthy, and dip it in chocolate? That way you can eat right, and still enjoy Valentine's Day!"

The woman claps her hands together, ecstatic at her revolutionary idea, while all around her, students are beginning to look sick and the idiot trash's head is once again in the garbage can. At this point, Ulquiorra wonders why he doesn't just keep it there, it seems like an appropriate home for him.

"So, are you going to try some, Ulquiorra?" the woman asks.

The classroom collectively sucks in a breath. They all know that as disgusting as the woman's food sounds, someone actually eating it has to be 1000 times worse.

"If you want to eat your lunch first and have them for dessert, that's fine too," the woman continues.

Ulquiorra looks her right in the eye, easily blocking out the people around them. She looks so innocent with her wide eyes and sweet smile, and he often wonders just why he finds her so… intriguing. When they'd first met, she was nothing to him, just more worthless trash good only for extermination.

When had that changed, he wonders. When did this 'Orihime Inoue' worm her way into his mind, and give him this thing she called her 'heart'? The truth was, he would probably never know, and in the end, he couldn't bring himself to care. The woman made him happy, a concept that was new to him, and if her smiles were any indication, he made her happy too. Somehow, that was all he needed to know to be satisfied.

"No, I'll eat them now," he says to her. "They look… quite interesting."

He doesn't reach for one yet despite what he says, because he knows from experience that she will squeal happily and grab him into a tight hug from which she won't let him go for around 10 to 15 seconds. Lo and behold...

"You're so sweet, Ulquiorra-kun," she says upon letting him go roughly 13 seconds later. "I just know you'll love them!"

Ulquiorra doesn't answer, but she doesn't expect him too. Instead, he reaches out and plucks a blob of the soggy vegetable from the floral print tray between his thumb, middle and index finger. It makes a squishing sound as he touches it. The surrounding students make soft noises of disgust, which luckily the woman doesn't seem to notice. Ulquiorra studies it for a moment, which is enough time for some chocolate to drip down on the tray, and he can almost hear the tension in the room as he slowly brings it to his lips.

He casually places the chocolate/broccoli mush into his mouth and the impromptu audience reacts accordingly. Kurosaki edges away as he lets out a disgusted groan, that 'Tatsuki' girl's face is scrunched up, the idiot trash is actually vomiting this time… and Ulquiorra just chews as slowly as possible, wanting to commit the taste to memory (and because he's somewhat amused by the student's reactions to all this).

When he swallows, it's been only 28 seconds, but it probably feels a million times longer to everyone besides him and the woman. Her face is full of anticipation and hope that he likes her gift. He stays silent for a moment, knowing that all eyes are on him, and everyone wants to know if the woman's cooking is as horrible as it sounds, or if it's... as horrible as it sounds.

"It's delicious," he says in his usual flat tone. "You are a good cook, Woman."

He notes when she grabs him into a hug again, that this one will probably be longer than fifteen seconds, and that she appears to be shoving his face into her cleavage without realizing it. He considers informing her of this, but on repeated thinking, decides not to.

When she finally lets go, she leans down to his seated position and kisses him on the lips. She's only started doing this recently, when she'd told him that they were now a 'couple' and that was what 'couples' did. He couldn't say he disliked it all that much, quite the opposite in fact, especially when the appendage in her mouth became involved.

This didn't appear to one of those times unfortunately, as the woman lets him go for real a few seconds later. However, she looks extremely happy, and so this time he doesn't mind.

"I'm so glad you like it, Ulquiorra-kun!" She exclaims with rapture. "And here I was worried I'd put in too much bean paste."

Ulquiorra shakes his head, "You made them just fine."

By now, the other students have gotten over their disgust and are slowly going back to their own Valentine's Day endeavors. The women sits back down, her chair turned to face him as she begins discussing their plans for tonight.

"I rented us a movie called 'Moonstruck'," she explains. "The clerk said it's an American film and it's really romantic. I also made your favorite: onion, ketchup, and cinnamon stew."

Everyone goes silent again.

"I wanted to add some peanut butter," the woman obliviously continues. "But we were running low, so I had to substitute mayonnaise and add extra vinegar."

"I'm gonna be sick again," the idiot trash says as his face turns green.

Ulquiorra just silently pops another chocolate covered broccoli piece into his mouth.

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**A/N: For some reason, I can't imagine Ulquiorra calling Orihime by her given name. It just sounds odd coming out of his mouth. I think that 'woman' (or 'Onna' if you prefer) would probably become his pet name for Orihime. At least that's how she'd probably see it. XD**

**Also, I don't think it need to be said that the person Ulquiorra refers to as 'idiot trash' is Keigo, but just in case... yeah, he's talking about Keigo.**

**Thanks for reading!**


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